Emperor Marksus and the Dragon Knights of Aurndest

Aurndest's golden age

Beginning

star date…. 6/25/2011
D&D&D starts a new campaign, lead by the dungeon master Nik.

In this first adventure, the party awakes to find themselves in an enormous wooden cage being pulledby two oxen. Around them they see dozens and dozens of rebels, after remembering what happened the night prior. The rebels attacked the village of Ashgar, an outlying city near the southern borders of Aurndest. Mysteriously, these 4 adventurers and another burly looking man are the only prisoners taken.

After the wizard sterling gets knocked out for attempting to escape, the rebels “re-drug” the party so they pass out. They awake, to what they assume is the next night still prisoned in the cage. Sterling, being a capable wizard, escapes from his shackle, and murders the sleeping guard next to the cart. michael almost ruins this chance to free themselves of the cage, but with quick thinking sterling and the burly man who is now identified as Lary, a champion, manage to save the situation and dispatch of both rebel guards.

After having the women shane explores ahead outside of this small clearing where they were held prisoner. Here he finds the sleeping quarters of the rebels. After debate of how to handle the situation, the adventurers decide on a plan. The wizard sterling disguises himself as a rebel, and distracts one of the three guards to the south of the camp fire. the other two guards wonder north of the campfire to investigate the “wisps” which are sterlings dancing lights he cast. The unexpecting guards are jumped by Lary, codee and Shane and are killed effeciently. despite shane missing his shot, lary was able to quickly kill the remaining guard off.

Once the party killed the rebel scum in their sleep, they grouped up near the forest on the edge of the rest of the encampment. They discover a force of a dozen well armed malitia men charging the group of three dozen rebels. A gruesome battle unfolds and results in a retreat of a handful of militia men, and a remaining 5 rebels and their leader. The sneaky rogue michael manages to assasinate the rebel leader, but doesn’t end up killing him, but at the same time an arrow comes flying from the ranger shane and nails him in the forehead. Lary, codee, and sterling take this moment to finish off the rest of the rebels.

We leave off as looting takes place, and the adventurers prepare to leave the encampment for Ashgar.

Upon arriving back at town, the adventurers discovered the citizens having big concerns for the safety of the village. The Mayor was holding a town meeting to reassure every one that everything was under control, and conveniently General Darius rode down on his Dragon to announce the Empire has not abandoned its people. The citizens were reassured by a Dragon Knight arriving and the crowd began to disperse. Larry and Darius got “Jerry” and Flandre interested in accompanying the forces that arrived in town to strike at the rebels. The party relaxed in the town for a few hours, and attended the meeting with Darius and his squad captains. They outlined the plans for attack and explained that 10 squads, including the adventurers group, would attack multiple camps and bases of importance to the rebels. Darius explained that this strike will crush the rebels and their attempt to regain strength.

story

Encounter
A short story by Nik Rector

Dawn rose over the rolling hills of Cerheth, the sound of the smith starting up and the call of the farmers roosters slowly awoke the townsfolk. The daily routine started up as people began to attend to their individual tasks. The smith preparing to make an order of horse shoes, the farmers attending to the animals, all seemed normal as the day began. Darius crawled out of bed and sluggishly put on attire for a day of adventure with his friends. As he wandered into the kitchen in search of his knapsack, his mother laid a breakfast of eggs bread and cheese on the table for him and his father. He ignored the delicious looking meal as he excitedly packed food, ran back to his room to pack a variety of equipment, and scurried back into the kitchen just as his parents were sitting down.
“Ho, ho! Slow down son, or you’ll trip over yourself!” His father warned as the anxious Darius jumped into his seat and dug into the well prepared breakfast.
“Father, me and the guys are going to explore upstream of the Bear River, past the Hikers Gorge!” Darius mumbled while stuffing as much food as he could into his tiny mouth. His fathers expression darkened and he frowned. Hikers Gorge was where the river flowed out of the Backbone, a range of mountainous forest area surrounded with an air of mystery and dangers.
“Son, You’re but 15 of age, as capable as you may think your young energetic self, there are unknown secrets that the Backbone holds, and stories of men not returning after ventures into the forest are less than uncommon. I forbid you of hiking past the pass” his father said with a tone that sent a vibrating chill down the back of Darius’ spine. But he was his own person and his father didn’t dictate what he could and couldn’t do. With a sullen expression, Darius pretended to submit to his fathers will
“Fine. You’re right father, it’s far to dangerous.” He tried to make it sound convincing and kept looking at his eggs that he was moving around on his wooden plate.